Joe and Nick.

I’m proud to call Joe Bell and friend and to have him as my painter. I think JB has been painting my bikes for about for about 6 years now and at the risk of repeating myself here I’ll tell you how it started.

I was working with a company called Cycle Fantasy and was happy with the work. They were very good people and easy to work with and I wasn’t looking for a replacement. At some point I noticed that the time the bikes were away at paint got much longer than they had been and then I got a call from the good folks at Cycle Fantasy. They told me that there was illness in the family and that they needed to shut the paint shop down effective immediately. This was of course the right thing for them to do and I understood that. I also knew that I had a lot of bikes at their shop and needed to get them into customers hands if I wanted to pay my bills and frankly, to stay in business. Things were still very new then and there were little in the way or reserves. Cycle Fantasy asked me where they should send the bikes and I didn’t have an answer.

I called Joe Bell (JB) and talked with him about having him paint my work. He had no shortage of work and didn’t need my business but I felt we were on the same page in terms of quality and customer service. I’ll never forget his telling me  – “I may be expensive but at least I’m slow”. I was fine with that. So we agreed to a trial arrangement of sorts and I had all my bikes (8 as I recall) sent to JB. Knowing that my cash flow had ground to a halt he put my bikes at the front of the queue and got some out in less than 2 weeks. This certainly kept me from closing the doors and saved my ass. Couple that with the fact that the bikes were stunning and I was hooked.

I’ve sent JB countless bikes since and we’ve become good friends. I’m proud to have that “JB” decal on the stay and couldn’t be happier to have he and Nick making me look good. I think of JB as my first customer – I need to please him before anyone else. I want him to love painting my work and I work hard to make sure that is always the case.

The good folks at Embrocation Online have just published an article about JB, Nick (JB’s right hand man) and Jason Sanchez (the painter for my good friend Dave Wages). These three guys are some of the best painters on the planet and while there may be others that do work that may be nearly as good, no one is better.

Here’s a link to the article. Enjoy.

Dave

Joe Bell Embrocation

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